


Atlas or the Sky

by exogenesisredemption



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Blood, F/F, F/M, Found Family, Graphic Description, Hurt No Comfort, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Lab Experiment, M/M, Multi, References to Dead Siblings, Second Person, Self Insert, Super-Soldier Child, Torture, Violence, blood mention, platonic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-01
Updated: 2020-03-21
Packaged: 2020-07-28 19:42:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 5
Words: 14,722
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20069512
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/exogenesisredemption/pseuds/exogenesisredemption
Summary: Once you mastered the gun, they determined you ready for their tests. You were nine years old when they stuck you inside a big can of metal and stabbed you with needles. The feeling was unsavory, but after being tested on all your life, you knew how to ignore the feeling of needles penetrating your skin.....In which you are a genetically modified child. Gender isn’t mentioned here. All of it is in second person.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I’ve been working really hard on this. Updates will be slow but that’s because I’m pouring everything I have into this character. I’m excited to reveal more. I made it a self insert because I want people to be able to see themselves as powerful people who can overcome. There is no gender applied towards the main character and no name other than code names. Enjoy! Please leave a review!

When the coughing stopped and your brother’s body fell silent, you didn’t know what to do. Your brother, Zehn, was dead. You were the only one to remain. 

Your feet stepped through the red that gushed out of him and towards your handler. They kept their eyes glued to the clipboard. Their nose was scrunched. Your training stopped you from tugging at their lab coat. 

You’re six, and you have murdered for the first time. 

Handler ignored the way blood flowed on his shoes. 

So did you. 

Stupidly, you looked back towards your brother. Zehn’s eyes were open, but he was not moving. You didn’t understand why, at the time. 

Handler made a content sound and led you out of the room.

You never saw Zehn again. 

Elf, Acht, Eins, Zwei and yourself, Drei, were the only ones to return to the playroom that day.

At the beginning of that day, you had twelve siblings. At the end, you had four. 

None of you were distraught. You were upset, but the concept of death, of murder, was not easily grasped by children. 

The next play sessions were with fake siblings, ones without faces. Handler called them ‘dummies’ but you liked fake sibling better. 

They gave you knives, and you were clumsy. Your hands too small to hold the hilt, too weak to puncture the fake siblings. You fought anyway.

Each time you missed you felt bits of despair float through your veins, the knowledge that Handler was writing your failures made you work harder. 

Lab coats injected you with a liquid and made you run for hours on end, then put you back in the playroom with the fake siblings. You played.

By the time you were seven, you were stabbing the fake siblings consistently, and you held the body of your sister Eins in your hands after you stabbed her the same way you did to the fake siblings. 

They put you in confinement after that. A week later, Eins was gone and you were back in the playroom. The fake siblings had faces, now. Soon after they gained faces, you learned how to use a pistol instead of a knife. You were much better with these than knives. 

The fake siblings quickly became real, moving targets. Blood coated the walls. 

Once you mastered the gun, they determined you ready for their tests. You were nine years old when they stuck you inside a big can of metal and stabbed you with needles. The feeling was unsavory, but after being tested on all your life, you knew how to ignore the feeling of needles penetrating your skin. 

Two people in lab coats periodically injected a clear liquid into your system, argued in a language you did not understand, then departed. 

You laid there passively, waiting for it to be over. The blood in your veins burned. A sun coursed through your veins. Pain. So much pain. 

Pain worked itself through you, but your lips stayed sealed. You didn’t dare to utter a whimper.

When the kerosene in your veins burned away, it left something new under your skin. 

The fire that had reinforced itself under your skin was gone, and the people in Lab Coats brought you to a barren room. 

Elf was in it, blood running down her arms. You stared. The Lab Coats commanded you to play with Elf, and you did. There wasn’t much room for interpretation. She screamed, but as soon as you glanced at her, her scream fell silent. The sounds of the room disappeared, and you were the cause. Elf’s mouth stayed open, her despair unheard but implied with the way she held her arm close, tears streaming down her face. You played. Between her eyes, a bullet sat, and she fell to the ground, mouth limp. Just like Zehn and Eins, red flowed around her. Your gun dropped. She bled out on the floor. Just like Zehn. 

Lab Coats took notes, and you watched as Handler dragged Elf away. 

You were twelve when they started to train your new abilities. Your name Drei was taken away, and you were given Eins as a reward. You are the Number Eins, now, Handler would say. You must carry the mantle. 

So you did. 

You were taught how to use your power. How to force the silence of everyone around you. Lesson after lesson. Day after day. You took away people’s sight, hearing, feelings. Everything that made them aware of the world was stripped from your victims. Despite this, you did not feel powerful. 

You felt guilty. 

Handler gave loose praises, saying you were the only one of your siblings to develop powers. You hated yourself for it. You were satisfied in the way you received Handler’s approval, though. 

Sensory Deprivation. That was what they called your power. All you knew was that it drowned people in darkness and made Handler proud.

You were seventeen when you were the only sibling left. Acht laid on the ground, choking on her blood. A morsel of remorse was felt, but you ignored it. Emotions weren’t useful. Handler nodded their approval, and you stepped over the body to make your way to your room. 

The room had remnants of the other siblings inside, marks on the walls, stains, weapons from years ago. Somewhere in the room, you were convinced their souls watched you.

You were the last. 

You weren’t sure why. You weren’t special. Just lucky. 

Handler sat in the room with you, lecturing. Lab Coats deemed it fit to train you in different languages, so Handler took care of it. Apparently, your native language was German. Handler taught Russian next, the language of the Lab Coats. Then English and Arabic.

Handler jotted down your success in the same clipboard, its edges worn with age. You knew they could get a new one, but suspected sentiment stopped them from doing so. You wondered how one could be sentimental of dead children but did not question it.

According to one of the Lab Coats, you were attractive. 

“They bred you that way,” Lab Coat said, face contorted with something ugly. You assumed it was lust. “Each of you kids are prime specimens.” 

You wonder why Lab Coat spoke of your siblings in present tense. Maybe he needed a lesson with Handler. Lab Coat clearly didn’t understand you speak of the dead in the past tense. 

Another Handler taught you how to manipulate those around you. She taught the best smiles, ways to pose, how to bat your eyelashes to look innocent. This handler became Handler Two. 

You liked Handler One better. 

There was a significant hiatus between your fifth murder and your sixth. They brought you outside the compound and told you to track down and kill a man called Harold Jankins. You did so with ease. 

He ran. You deprived him of his senses. He stopped running. 

Your training kicked in, and the blood of Harold trailed down your arms. 

Handler Two tsked. “Messy. We must work on that.”

You nodded, eager to please. 

His body was left in the snow. Guilt. 

You ignored it.

You were more focused on the stars than the body. You had never been outside before. You could smell the crisp air and taste the blood staining the snow. 

At the compound, you were trained on how to cleanly kill. 

You didn’t have siblings to practice on, so they sent you out of the compound with a new target. This time, they sent a man with a metal arm and long hair with you. He called you Kleine Soldat and you called him Winter-Soldat.

The killing was easy, but the tracking had taken days. The Winter-Soldat did not contribute to the search. He seemed to merely be there to examine you, ensure no misbehaviors. You both looked strangely alike. You kept this knowledge to yourself. Knowledge was dangerous. 

The target was killed easily, screams stopped with a mere flick of the hand. While his senses were gone, you killed him cleanly. You considered the sensory deprivation mercy. They may have been terrified, but they were not pained. 

You thought of Elf and the way she grasped at her arm. Sadness. Guilt. 

You forgot her as quickly as she came.

Best not to linger. 

The mission's success led to more missions. One of which you failed. They threw you into a chamber after that. The soldier sat in one just like it across from your own. The fire that sat in your veins burned. Electricity, you remembered. The vocabulary word sat on your tongue while you fought screams. They chanted words to the Winter-Soldat and let the electricity flow through your veins. 

Winter-Soldat fought against the restraints when he saw you on your own electricity chair. You assumed he also realized how alike your features are. 

Handler One had told you of punishment by electrocution. You didn’t mind it. You deserved it. 

You were being punished for your failures. Your stomach was filled with dread as more electricity was forced through you. For the first time in your life, you passed out.

You woke in the electric chair. 

Handler took you out, angry. They yelled at you in Russian, and Handler Two did the same in Arabic.

You were injected with needles and tested. You remained still. 

A case of liquid sat in the corner. You watched it while Lab Coats whispered in Russian. 

The gentle beeping of the machinery was overpowered by the sound of an alarm. Red flashed around the room, and an ugly noise made its way through the building. The whispers became shouts, and you were ushered away. Lab Coats stuffed you in a closet and barked orders. Your Handlers were nowhere to be seen. 

The minutes passed cruelly. Bangs and shouts were heard from beyond the door, but you remained in the closet. The closet filled with the familiar smell of blood. You waited.

English words flooded through the doors in an unfamiliar voice. “FRIDAY, scan for signs of the soldier.”

You heard beeps on the other side of the door. You longed for a peek outside the door, to greet a new face. Seventeen years of the same staff made you bored, and they had finally hired one that spoke English. 

“None of the soldier, however, there seems to be a child of similar genetic makeup in that closet.”

“Child soldiers? Hydra really knows how to ruin lives, huh?”

The doorknob jiggled. The distinct feeling of adrenaline filled your veins. You sat in the darkness of the closet, eager. 

A man dressed in neither a Lab Coat nor Handler clothing stood before you. His clothing shone like metal in red and gold. He spoke to the woman called FRIDAY, but you could not see her. 

“FRIDAY, alert the others of the new uh… situation.”

Your eyes glued themselves to the new man. He stood, unsure. Handler Two’s lesson told you his very thoughts by watching his body language. Nervous. Unsure. Worried, even. It was hard to tell with the strange armor the man was wearing.

A woman with fire for hair was the first to arrive. Her face contorted with disgust when she saw you. Two files were clasped in her hands. She held herself in the same way Handler Two taught you. 

You wonder if she might be a sibling from long ago, trained to do the same as you were. You watched the two converse before they turn back to you. In German, Fire Hair asks you your name. Your reply makes her purse her lips and she nods at the Metal Man. 

Your knees ached from sitting in the closet for so long. You did not dare to get up and waited for orders. 

Fire Hair noticed this and gave you the order. You got up quickly, which startled the Metal Man. He obviously did not understand German. Strange. 

The pair read through one of the files. 

“Theirs were the thickest ones,” Fire Hair said, perfectly stoic. Her eyes betrayed her, though. She was distressed. You see Winter-Soldat’s photo on one of the files.

You ask for the soldier. 

“You know him, kid?”

You nod at the man. “We have been on a few missions together. I believe he is the basis of my genetics.”

“That’s just great. How many more mini-Bucky’s are there?”

The woman replies with a grave voice. “None. This one killed the rest.” 

You watched their conversation, confused by the disgust on their faces. You had done just as your Handler said to, why were they disappointed?

Their tones make the disgust seem as if it was something else. Pity, maybe? 

You opened your mouth to ask, but a man in a strange suit came in. He was carrying a limp Winter-Soldat in his arms. “We have to get out of here before-” the man paused, glancing at you. “Are we taking them?”

Metal Man sighed. “We have to. Can’t leave a mini-assassin here.”

“How many are there?” 

“There were twelve. Now, though...” 

The man nods. “So are they new mini-soldiers or something more?” 

“Seems like they were testing a new version of the super soldier serum on them. They were the only one that made it out with any effects.” Fire Hair paused before continuing. “Sensory deprivation and mildly enhanced intelligence. They are marked this as the first super soldier success since Bucky.” 

“Great. Just great.”

You frowned. 

Fire Hair grabbed your hand and, in German, ordered you to come with them. You noticed the needle in her hand. A sedative. 

You didn’t mention it. You didn’t want to be put in the chair for disobedience. 

The familiar feeling of a needle entered your arm. 

You slept. 

_

It was obvious, the way the blond loved Winter-Soldat. You were not cruel enough to remind him that the soldier was merely a husk, now. No more a man than you were a human. 

Soulless. That’s the word. You were soulless. Each murder stole a bit of your soul. Nothing left, now. Nothing. You’re a husk. Just like the soldier. 

Someone similar to a Lab Coat, but with a sweeter voice and kinder hands draws blood from you. You watched. 

The name tag said ‘Nurse Fletcher’. 

“Natasha we can’t just keep the kid. They're dangerous.” Metal Man was speaking. He was out of his armor now. He was speaking to Fire Hair. You assumed Natasha was her name. Watching her, you assumed it had not always been that way. Maybe she was Eins, once. Like you. 

Did this mean you may choose a name?

“Don’t talk about them like that. Like they’re a monster. They-“ 

She cut herself off. Your eyes stayed on her back. What was she going to say? 

You lost interest, and returned your attention to Soldat. He was now conscious. Barely. You ripped the wires from your skin and started towards his bed across the room. The blond looked up at you. You ignored him. Soldat stared at you, a cruel mixture of hatred and love in his eyes. 

Your file laid on the table next to his bed. In Russian, it told of the twelve offspring of one James Buchanan Barnes, alias: The Winter Soldier. Your photo was the only one not crossed out. 

You glanced back at him. 

“You are my father?” You questioned him. It was German, you think, but you’re not sure. You knew nothing. Not anymore. 

He grunted. This was as close to an affirmation as you would get. 

You took it. 

Natasha was at your side. A threat. 

You wandered back to your bed. 

The kind Lab Coat came back, a clipboard in hand. It had small mammals on it. When you asked what they were, her eyes went wide. 

You didn’t get your answer. Instead, both you Soldat and the blond were carted off into a testing room. 

There they tested your strength in comparison to the two men. 

You were above average, but nothing compared to the others. 

They tested your stamina. 

Again, the same result. 

In every aspect except intelligence and lethality you were only slightly above average. On a scale of ten, you were ranked 10 on lethality, and 8.5 on intelligence. 

On the last test, fighting ability, you gave the blond a black eye. As soon as you punched him it began to swell. 

Over the intercom came the command. “Play nice, kid.”

Play? 

This is a strange place to play, but you were never one for questions. 

Immediately you let your power free onto the blond. He fell to the ground, unable to move. His mouth was open, probably in a silent scream. 

The Lab Coat has forgotten to give you knives or a pistol. 

You walked forward calmly and readied yourself to snap the man’s neck, but Soldat stopped you. Your wrist snapped as he grabbed it, throwing you across the room. 

Confusion colored your features. Why is he punishing you? You were told to play. 

You reached out with your ability, clouding the soldier too. Neither of them moved. You knew they couldn’t see, hear, touch. Silence enveloped them. 

A scream came over the intercom. “Stop! No!” 

It was too late, though. The command had been laid. No one can take back a command without the trigger word. The word had been set in place after the incident where you killed the old Eins. 

Then, the same voice screamed “Bahn!” 

You stopped. 

Your sensory deprivation pulled away from the two, and you waited for a new command. 

Your wrist hung limply at your side. Luckily, you learned to deprive yourself of feeling in certain limbs long ago. 

“What were you thinking? You were going to kill Steve!” Soldat growled. He wasn’t happy. Why? It was only a command. He should be glad I followed the command. 

“The intercom said to play.” 

Soldat froze, then sighed. The answer was good enough for him. 

“Take them to confinement. We need to find their triggers,” the blond-Steve- said. 

You were led away by men in hasmat suits. They shook when they touched you. 

Handler once told you if someone fears you, you have already won. 

Hazmat Suits have lost, then. 

You were put into a padded room. A kind Lab Coat came in and fixed your wrist, but you kept the sensory deprivation on it. 

You knew you were dangerous. That was the entire point of your upbringing. Make someone dangerous. Make someone willing to kill. 

You didn’t, though, see the point behind the padded cell. Time passed slowly inside it, and you hated that. In your old training center, you were always doing something. Tests, training, missions. Here, though, it’s just a whole lot of waiting. Maybe they’re training your patience. 

Maybe they’ve forgotten about you. That had never happened before. From a young age you were the center of attention. Even before you were number Eins you were Drie. Better than the others. Being better meant more attention. 

After what felt like hours, you curled up in a fetal position and slept. 

You woke up often, but after assessing that nothing had changed, lulled yourself back to sleep. Oftentimes, you hummed a barely familiar lullaby. You remember being sung to once. 

You were small. Maybe three years old. The voice was scratchy and not well versed in singing, but it was something. It was a small glimmer of normalcy through the lab tests. 

They once told you and your siblings about Atlas, who holds up the sky. 

Whoever it was was taken away and replaced with Handler. 

Oftentimes, when the killing came crashing down on you, you felt like Atlas. Sometimes, though, you were the sky. 

You were awoken after the door creaked open. Behind it was the same man who you saw before. The one that hid in a suit of metal. 

“C’mon kid. Apparently Fury has it out for the world and wants you and Barnes to live in the tower with us. He thinks it’ll make you normal. Do you even understand what I’m saying?” 

“I’m perfectly capable of communicating in English, Arabic, German, and Russian.” 

Metal-Man groaned and rubbed his face. “God, kid, what are you? Spock?”

You didn’t understand the reference. He sighed and waved his hands in exasperation. “Let’s go. This room is giving me the heebie jeebies.” 

You followed him out of the dark room and into the light.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You make a mistake, everything spirals.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you enjoy!

You quickly learned that people do not like to know you see through them. 

Once, when Handler was teaching you, you pointed out the way their hand quivered. You deduced two things: they were afraid of you or they were afraid of the Lab Coats listening in. 

Handler slapped you and sent you to your room. 

That same night you were punished. Twice. 

You have scars on your stomach from the punishment. Strangely, you cherish them.

You clenched your fists, agents watching you. They were all dressed in black. Their demeanor screamed distress. You glanced at them. Their uniforms show that they are followers. They listened to a leader that gave orders, but each one had a different alliance. Underneath it all, though, they share one thing in common. They are afraid of you. 

Tony noticed your harsh glare towards the agents. “Calm down, kid. They’re just here to make sure everybody behaves.”

All of your life you had been a follower. Mindless. Now is no different. Tony is telling you what to do, and you do it. While his tone may not give off the authority Handler’s had, it would have to make do. Orders are orders. And you intended to follow them. 

(You wish you didn’t know why you followed them, but you do. As they said, you’re smart. Genius, even. You follow the orders for a reason.) 

You watch as Soldat grasps the blond’s hand. They are a mosaic of broken glass together. Connected, they make a stained glass window. You don’t like it. You don’t like the way the blond is ripping Soldat from something like you into something like him. You don’t like the way that you’re quickly becoming the only one on the ship that had nothing and no one. All you have are ghosts trailing after you. The coldness of your murderous hands. 

It hurts to remind yourself that you were the one that killed anyone that could have been there for you. The blood that flowed onto your shoes so long ago never left. Not really. You could still feel it and smell it. No matter how many people you killed the blood of your siblings was always strongest. 

The fact that they would have been killed anyway is no comfort. 

You are Eins, and that name meant that you carry the mantle of death wherever you go. With each step the Grim Reaper shadows you. Death hates you for making their job so demanding. 

Sometimes, you wish you had died as Drei. 

“Hey, kid. Pull out of your thoughts,” Tony says, “Thinking is dangerous. It’s almost killed me one too many times.”

‘I’m burdened by the idea that what I’ve been raised with might haunt me for the rest of my life,’ you said. But instead, it came out as “Yes, sir.”

‘You’ll never be able to outgrow your sins,’ Tony said, but it came out like “Don’t call me sir.” 

_____

Today, you feel like Atlas. Watching the Soldat break apart and get pulled back together by the blond-Steve, Tony called him- made you furious. The same fury that killed your siblings. Fury that burns away everything in its path. 

Fury that forces you to hold up the sky because you must repent your sins. 

Tony introduced you to a room. It was nicer than anything you had ever seen. There were no bloodstains on the wall. No ghosts hiding in plain sight. 

All that was there was a bed and a lamp. 

It was more than you could have ever asked for.

Nick Fury, a man who is more powerful than he lets on, had demanded you stay here. Along with Soldat, you will be trained for a new program. Something called SHIELD. 

Your old program, as you have learned today, was called HYDRA. 

You liked the name SHIELD better. 

Soldat’s Room was next door. 

You could hear his crying. It was soft. SOfter than you had ever heard him be. When you pictured Soldat, you could only see the blood on his hands. Seeing him cry, though. It made you question everything you thought you knew about him. 

Soldat, you supposed, was not as unbreakable as you thought. All it took was Steve’s touch and the facade melted away. 

When he was unbreakable, he could not die. But because of Steve, he is mortal again. He sits with the rest of humanity. 

Because he was mortal again, he was no longer like you. No longer the emotionless killer you were made to be. You, again, were alone.

Steve was putting you, no, him in danger. 

You planned to stop that. 

The opportunity presented itself a week after you had been introduced to your new familial unit. They called themselves Avengers.

Clint-codename Hawkeye- had taken it upon himself to introduce you to modern gadgets such as the television and a cell phone. They joked that you knew less than Steve when it came to technology. Each time you bit back a reply. Better for them to see you as quiet rather than hostile. Natasha watched you, eyes knowing. She felt the way your childhood weighed upon you because she was the some. You wished to ask if the burden would ever leave. The way her eyes broke each time she saw you meant it would not.

Tony led you to your room after a ‘family movie night’. 

“If you need anything, just ask JARVIS, kid. You know the deal.” He yawned and rubbed at his eyes. You calculated that he hadn’t slept in approximately 54 hours. 

It was because of this that he left your door unlocked. A fatal mistake.

It was nearing 2 in the morning when you left your room. A voice over the intercom warned you against it. It called out to you like your siblings once had during playtime. 

You remembered the way they would cry for you to stop. Then the red that would often follow. Your stomach churned, but you continued on. For Soldat. (You told yourself it was for him. It wasn’t. It was for your own selfish purposes.)

The voice, JARVIS, threatened to sound an alarm. 

The threat was not empty. 

It didn’t matter, though. You’d done missions like this before. 

(Never of your own accord, a voice in your head says. You tell it to shut up.) 

You rush towards Soldat’s room. You knew for a fact Steve had not left him. Not once. Not to eat, drink, or even get away. They never left each other’s side. 

Dangerous. Steve was dangerous. He was turning Soldat mortal, and you could not stand to be the only one in this building without a soul. Could not stand to hold the burden of life without missions to drown out the guilt. 

If you return Soldat’s immortality, the missions would return. Soldat would return his attention to you. If only for a moment. 

Your logic was flawed. You knew this. You continued anyway.

The door handle broke beneath the force of your foot and you walk in. Steve was sitting up, at the ready. Behind you, you heard footsteps. 

You made quick work of killing. 

Or at least you tried. 

Soldat and Tony break you away from Steve. 

After struggling against a familiar metal hand, you felt a needle slip into your skin. 

____

“I’m surprised,” a man called out to you. “I thought you would crack earlier than that. Good job. You went almost 8 days without trying to murder someone. Too bad you went after America’s greatest. Maybe if you went after Stark you would’ve stood a chance. He has a soft spot for lost causes.” 

Your head ached. Lights that were too bright shone down on you. 

You released your Sensory Deprivation in the air, hoping it would catch whoever holding you captive long enough for you to escape. 

“That won’t work here,” the man continued. “We’ve made this room especially for enhanced kids like you.” 

Like you? There are others? You had thought you were the only one. That’s what the Lab Coats had said. Constantly, as if it were a mantra you would be told you were the only success. 

Maybe they were lying. 

“We’ve got a mission for you. We heard you like those.” 

Mission? 

“Your file was quite heavy. You don’t look like much of a killer but you’ve killed more in the last five years than some of my agents have in their whole lives. I’m almost impressed.” 

“Almost?” You asked, voice croaking. 

“You definitely are an attractive agent. Any agency would be grabbing at you as soon as HYDRA released you for official missions. Luckily for us, we have you now. And SHIELD doesn’t share.” 

You grimaced. He spoke about you like you were a piece of meat. To the world, maybe you were. To yourself, you were just a murderer. Only someone that came out from a lab experiment lucky. Someone who killed to win Eins.

Handler once told you the world would eat you up and spit you out if you didn’t fight back. 

After he told you that, you murdered for the first time. You can’t even remember the face of the sibling, the number. How long ago were you deemed a murderer? How many times have you killed? 

Countless. 

Each time the blood rolled down your arms, you buried it away. Hid away your guilt. At this point, it’s much too close to the surface. You can bury it with missions, though. You know that. Missions will make you forget the first and the second and the third kills. It will blur them all together until all you remember is the warmth of the blood and the way you walked away. 

You stink of your sibling’s blood, even after all these years. If you killed more, maybe it would drown out. 

(It isn’t true, but you’re hopeful that it will be one day).

You meet the eyes of the man through the glass. He had an eyepatch and a smirk on his face. He calls himself Nick Fury.

“What’s my mission?”

Fury laughs. “You’ll see.” 

Days later and you were in a Hoverjet with Fury. His demeanor was hard to read. You couldn’t get past the thick layers of authority he radiates. 

He was on a small device, speaking into it. It was like the bricks the Lab Coats spoke in, but it had words on it. ‘StarkPhone’ the case read. 

You didn’t know what that meant. 

“Yes, your little charge is fine. Getting all the mental help our counselors can give. By the time we send them back they’ll be like that Parker kid you’re always gloating about.” 

Fury raised his eyebrow. “That’s none of your business, Stark. We aren’t putting the kid on file until we know HYDRA isn’t after them. The rest is classified.” 

Fury hit a big red button on the phone and looked at you. 

You briefly wondered who Parker was. Then you decided you didn’t care. 

Leaves flew around you as the jet slowly flew away. You were left alone. As always. 

It started slowly. Missions always started that way. It was always the worst part. 

You were dressed as a staff member and sent into a man’s home. 

Your orders were to kill. Then steal. Then kill whoever got in the way of your stealing. It was simple. You were allowed to be as messy as you pleased. 

You liked that. 

A billionaire was your main victim. You held him at gunpoint until he gave you the code to his safe, and then you shot him. 

The blood-stained your shoes. 

(No matter how hard you tried, the stain never came out. Visibly, it was gone. But it was always there. You could always feel it.) 

It briefly reminded you of your first murder. The way the red inched over the floor made you almost feel sick. 

In the end, you killed five men. 

You didn’t use your ability. 

You didn’t have to. 

They shook and broke apart before your eyes. Only two tried to fight back. 

Mission success.

You didn’t know what you retrieved was called. 

But you did remember the terror in your victims' eyes. How they begged and pleaded. You would have felt sick if you weren’t so used to it.

Your next mission was to kill a woman. She was silently praying in a church. She tapped her fingers, fiddling with her hands.

You broke one of the statues over her head. 

When she fell, the crack of her skull made you think of glass. 

Dozens of missions followed, and all of them resulted in death. Missions kept you busy. Being busy stopped you from thinking about how many sins you were committing, how many lives you were taking.

(No matter how many you took, you remembered each face.)  
______

Someone hummed distantly while you sat on a bed. The tune was familiar. You ignored it and continued reading. A stolen copy of Greek myths sat in your lap. If you had a word for this night you would call it peaceful. 

For three months Fury has been sending you all over the globe, killing. Each time you return he mentions another problem in China or Afghanistan or Germany and you flew away yet again. 

Tonight, though, it is not busy. The exhaustion from mission after mission piled up on you. Sleep didn't take you, though. Instead, you read. 

In the book, Jason had retrieved the Golden Fleece and Medea killed her brother as a distraction. 

You saw yourself in Medea, if only for that. Killing was a way to receive praise and love from Handlers, so you did it. For small moments you would be loved. 

Now though, the regret endlessly fills you up. Each sibling, each person engraved themselves into your mind. Each death a consequence. Because while they no longer lived in the outside world, in your mind they screamed. 

Whoever was humming stopped. Melody replaced by snoring. You pushed away your thoughts as well as you could and read.

When the clock ticked to midnight, you turned 18. You barely registered it.

Happy birthday.  
______

Your most recent mission was one in New York City. Fury teamed you up with one Daredevil to bring down a group of thugs selling alien tech. 

“You’re blind.” 

Daredevil smiled a crooked smile. He looked like a puppy almost. 

“You’re perceptive for a seventeen-year-old. Where did Fury find you?”

He waited for an answer. 

None came. 

You didn’t know what to say. With your small amount of time with SHIELD, you had learned that mentioning HYDRA as your origin was generally a great way to be avoided. 

While you didn’t mind being avoided in SHIELD, Daredevil seemed to be a valuable ally.

He took the silence as an answer. 

Together, you slid into a warehouse silently. 

Daredevil relayed his plan to you. “I do best with the light off, it gives me an advantage. But because you depend on your sight, I’ll have to go in first.”

You shook your head. “Did Fury not tell you?”

“Tell me what?” Daredevil’s voice was on edge. 

You turned your hand downwards towards your victims. They started to freeze, their senses turning off. Their nerves stopped working, their sight, their smell. Fear filled the room and you almost relished in it. “Take them out quickly, I can’t hold for long.” 

Daredevil took out at least half before a migraine crept its way into your head. 

Once you release your sensory deprivation every person in the room stumbled towards both you and Daredevil; their progress inhibited by the shock of receiving their senses back so quickly. 

It was chaotic, bodies flying everywhere. There was no time to think, and for the first time, you thanked your rigorous training. You felt a fist connect with your cheek and you grabbed at it, taking away their ability to see. You flipped them over as they shouted in pain. Their wrist cracked. 

It went on like that forever. You dodged, took hits, and felt blood-you didn’t know if it was yours or not- all over your face. Daredevil wasn’t faring any better. You could hear his labored breathing from across the warehouse. 

Even after taking out half, both of you were outmatched. They were impressive for thugs. You were beginning to suspect they were something more. 

Dodge, punch, kick, shout. Dodge. Punch, kick. Yell out in pain. 

As you broke one of the men’s teeth, an otherworldly noise began to vibrate throughout the warehouse. 

“Say bye-bye, Devil.” One of the henchmen laughed. Insanity coated every word. 

As he pointed the weapon towards Daredevil, you started to run. You couldn’t explain how or why, but your legs moved faster than they ever had. 

Before the weapon could go off, a wall blew up. 

Iron Man flew through the wall. “Hey, sorry I’m late to the party, traffic was awf-” He broke off when he saw you. “Fury is never going to hear the end of this,” Tony says. He starts rambling, but the blood in your ears makes it hard to hear. 

The smell in the air faintly reminded you of the lab you grew up in. Blood mixed with something unnatural. 

You heard Daredevil fall to the ground in exhaustion. All of the henchmen were either dead or knocked out. You joined them.

As your eyes closed, you felt a familiar metal arm cradle you close. 

_______________________

You were never a child. You knew this. From the time you were born, everything was a competition. You were made to be a killer, and that is what you did. 

You killed. You were tortured. You killed again. 

You didn’t understand it wasn’t normal. You didn’t understand it was wrong. (Not until later, at least). 

But you always wished it was you that lost that day when you were six. That it was you instead of your sibling lying on the ground bleeding red. It wasn’t you, though, so you moved on. Got stronger. Got more powerful. 

Killed more people. 

You wished you could wash it all away. Wipe the murders you committed off your slate. 

“Can you wipe off that much red?” Natasha asked, eyes boring into yours. 

“Could you?” 

She smiled. It was weak, almost forced. “Not yet.” 

“Well then maybe there’s no hope for either of us.”

Before she could say anything more, you turned away. 

Your hospital gown was wrinkled where you clenched at it. 

“He loves you, you know.” She stood, ready to leave. “He’s sorry he let it get as far as it did, that he didn’t break you all out before it was too late.” 

A scowl took over your face. Your fingernails dig into your palm. “If he is so sorry, why is he not here to say so?” 

Natasha shuts the door behind her. 

You listen to the screams that float through the vents. They don’t think you can hear any of it. You can. 

“For months you lied to every single one of us about them. For months you forced a child to kill over and over. They never even got over the trauma of their first murders and you made them commit hundreds more!” You could hear Tony yelling. Fury was right. He does have a soft spot for lost causes.

“They aren’t a child. Children don’t know how to kill men with their bare hands. Children don’t take orders. They are a soldier.”

“No, Fury. I am a soldier, Bucky was a soldier. That child who has lived through more trauma than they deserved is a victim.” Steve defended you. You almost regretted trying to murder him. 

Almost.

You sighed and crawled back into the hospital-like bed they provided for you. The voice in the ceiling spoke to you.

You ignored it. 

Months of exhaustion crashed onto you all at once. 

Your eyes closed, and you were lost to the world. 

In your dreams, blood sat at your shoes. But instead of your siblings, it was all of your victims. 

You didn’t sleep soundly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please remember to leave a kudos or a comment if you like. It helps a lot. Thanks for reading!


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> eins Grows just a little

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you enjoy! Let me know if you see any typos/mistakes 💕

Your body feels bruised and broken, but you are trained to ignore it. Your mind is filled with red. You aren’t trained to ignore that. You do so anyway. 

You’ve been in and out of sleep for a while. You wake gripping the sheets to your chest. You quickly calm yourself and fall back into slumber. 

Sometimes you wake to the smell of nature and cheap cologne. Sometimes you wake to shampoo and aftershave. You’re much too tired to identify where the smell comes from. 

Occasionally when you wake, you listen. You hear rumors. Threats. 

You can’t tell the difference between threats and promises anymore. 

Your hands are covered in blood. You asked the man in the ceiling if he could see it. He said he couldn’t. Not sure if you should believe him or not, you just stare at them. 

They are crusted over. 

You wash your hands for the fifth time that morning and return to bed. 

There is not much to do in the small room. That leaves you to your thoughts.

“You’re a murderer,” you whisper to yourself. “You’ve killed so many people. Hurt so many more. How many more? How much more blood can you take?”

You don’t know how to answer your own question. That terrifies you.

“I don’t think you’ll be killing anyone else. Not as long as I can help it,” Tony said. You didn’t even notice him. How long had he been there? 

To you, nothing matters anymore. Nothing but the blood. 

“There’s nothing there, you know.” Tony says, looking at you. His eyes are filled with something. You only know how to see fear and hatred. His eyes hold neither. 

“Just because you cannot see it doesn’t mean it isn’t there. I can see it. I can smell it. The stench is overwhelming.” 

Tony leaves. In the chair he was sitting in, a copy of Macbeth sits. 

You read through it. 

In the middle of the night you whisper Lady Macbeth’s lines to yourself. You know why you are drawn to her, but pretend not to. 

You don’t know how long you stay in the room. 

One day, you grasp the doorknob. It twists. 

You walk into the kitchen. 

Three people stare at you. Natasha. Tony. Bucky. 

You are hungry. You can’t recall the last time you ate anything. You never had to actively think about caring for yourself before. You just had to listen to orders and let yourself fall into routine.

You consume as much as you can and sit on the tile. 

Someone complains about the good Poptarts being gone. 

Sleep takes you. 

Somehow, you’re back in your bed by morning. 

In your dreams, hands grasp at your throat and suffocate you. You die over and over again. 

Each time you thank them. 

When you walk out of your room for the second time, you are colder than snow. 

You once read that snow absorbs sound. Maybe that explains why no one speaks when you enter the room. 

Cautiously, the Avengers return to their game. Steve and Bucky are stiffer than the others. You act like you don’t notice, but they know you have. 

They are sitting around a colorful board. Before you can stop yourself, you ask what it is. 

“You’ve never played Monopoly? God, kid, did you live under a rock or something?” Tony stares at you, questioning. You can tell he asked in jest, but you haven’t a clue how to reply other than with the truth.

“No. I lived inside a HYDRA lab dedicated to creating the perfect murderer.” 

“It was a rhetorical question.” 

“Oh.” 

Time passes slowly as you decide what to do. You could flee to the room and continue to stare at the white walls, imagining them to be red. Or, you could try this ‘Monopoly’. 

Surprisingly, Monopoly is the more torturous of the two. 

You do not understand money. You knew it existed, but you never had to use it before. 

“I would like to purchase the hotel.”

“Can’t do that, kid. Nat owns it. Maybe she’ll let you buy it off her, though.”

“Not happening. I’ve got too much cash flowing in from it.” 

Your eyes meet Nat’s. “I offer my money in exchange for the hotel.”

Nat just laughed. “No. Maybe next time.”

“But I offered you money as Tony said.” 

“And I said no.” Nat’s voice has a tone that challenges you. 

You know what that means. You have to fight her for it. Just like in the labs. 

You launch yourself across the table. Natasha is on the ground. Your powers are weak from disuse, but they still work on her. 

You start reaching for her neck. 

You feel a needle slip under your skin and darkness covers you. 

___

You see Soldat’s disappointed face when you wake. 

His eyes are full of rage. Yours, you think, are full of nothing. 

“Warum? Warum bist du so?” 

Soldat’s voice is pregnant with emotion. 

“Ich kann nichts dafür.”

You bite your lip so hard it bleeds. When he realizes you aren’t going to elaborate, he leaves. 

Abandoned yet again, you let yourself fall into a trance. The white walls bleed red and the silence of the room turns into screams. You can’t tell if it is your own screeches filling the room, but you know who’s blood is running down the walls. 

You let your ability leak into the room and you pray one day you will no longer be immune to it. You crave the feeling of nothingness. 

___

Your siblings are alive. 

Their screams fill the room and tears are streaming down your face. 

“Why did you do this to us? We were only children! You murderer! You murderer!”

You want to say you were only a child too. A lucky one, but still just a child. Instead, dust is filling your mouth and your throat aches. 

Siblings claw their way toward you, nails scraping at the ground. Some of their heads are twisted, some have blood oozing out of their heads. 

Zehn is the first to grab at your shoes. Bloodying them. 

You watch in horror as he climbs up your leg, body rotted away. Elf was the only one not moving, her mouth open in a silent scream. Instead of tears, blood rolls down her cheeks. 

Shrieks overwhelm you. The world is made of sound and suffering and you don’t know which one you want to stop first. Smoke from your ability fills the room but the screams are still heard. Your siblings still move, undeterred. 

Powerless. That is how you feel. You’ve never felt this way before. Never like this. 

You cry out to someone, anyone. Tears stream down your own cheeks. Zehn does not let you sob. He reaches his rotten hand down your throat. You choke. He is reaching toward your heart. He grabs it. His fingers curl around your heart and he begins to pull. 

He rips you apart over and over. Each time squeezing the blood out of your heart, eyes dark. You notice it pools at your shoes. It does not stain. 

When you wake you clutch at where your heart is supposed to be. You doubt you truly have one. No one with a heart could do the things you have. 

You spend the day holed up in your room. Your hands are twisted into the sheets. 

JARVIS reports your status to your Handlers. Tony is the one who tells you about the therapy session you have to go to tomorrow. 

You don’t know why you need therapy.

You are perfectly fine.

Your throat is dry. You wonder if it is full of sand.  
___

The therapist’s nails are red. You find this ironic.

She smells like cheap perfume. Her hair is tucked behind her ears neatly. She looks perfect, but you stare into her soul. Her eyes are carefully blank. But each time you move her finger subtly moves towards a panic button installed under her desk.

She does not trust you.

Good.

In your mind, you deem her Therapist. 

You sit on the couch. It’s leather. Each time you move you feel your skin peel away from it. 

“What shall I call you, then?”

You shrug. 

She writes something down. 

She assures you she can be trusted. 

“Call me anything.” 

You hope she does not call you Eins. 

For the rest of the hour, she talks to you about coping techniques. For you, an hour is spent wondering why she thinks you aren’t coping well enough.

You spend the session nervously eying her nails. They are glossy, and you can see your reflection in them. You resemble a monster. 

At some point, she gently asks you about your siblings. 

“There were twelve of us. We killed each other one by one,” you pause. “I can still smell their blood on my skin. I’m a monster.” 

Her eyes agree with you, but her voice says you are not. You trust her eyes. 

Therapist tells you to go home and try to use the coping mechanisms she told you about. You forgot them. 

___

Tony insists on you attending the movie night. 

“We all got off on the wrong foot. I think this will be good for everyone.” 

He acts like you have a choice. 

The room is chaos. There is popcorn on the floor and candy strewn about the room. Clint is munching on something red and covered in what looks like salt. 

“So, now that we’re all gathered…” Tony says, pulling a blanket off the couch and throwing it in Steve’s face. “Tonight’s choices are…” 

You quickly zone out, not caring what the choices are. They will be made for you, as always. 

(A small part of you wants to choose.) 

While everyone talks over the film playing on the television, you stare at the popcorn. 

Staring at one point for long enough allows you to fall back into your thoughts. Your consciousness shrinks away into the back of your mind where you hide. 

Halls of your old facility surround you. It’s familiar and cold. Steps echo off the walls like ghosts. 

You follow the noise. 

Handler One stands in the middle of the hall. You reach towards them. 

Suddenly, you are in a new place. A church. 

“You killed me.” 

You turn to see a woman. 

“Why?” 

Her eyes bore into your soul. A statue sits in the corner, in pieces. One of the pieces is still stuck in the woman’s eyes. You flinch away when she touches you.

Another place. A plain buried in ice and snow. 

You do not know this place, but the blood on the ground makes you gag. 

“Kid? Kid, hey, c’mon. Don’t zone out on us like this.” 

Someone is shaking you but all your senses are focused on the way the blood on the ground infects the snow with red. 

“Eins. Achtung!” 

Before you process it, you are standing with your arms at your sides. You are no longer on the icy plain but in the common room. Those around you stare. 

Immediately, you make your way out of the common room and into your assigned bed quarters. 

No one dares follow. 

You don’t know whether to be thankful or sob. 

___

Your next therapy session is with the same woman. 

The whole session she invites you to speak. You assume your lack of words bothers her. 

When she is still there at your next session, you are proven wrong. 

Again she invites you to talk. 

You do not. 

She fills the silence with polite anecdotes. Occasionally, she glances at your wringing hands and writes something down. 

The next week you do not meet inside of the office. Instead, it is inside of a room with a large table. Every member of the household sits with you, eyes trained into Therapist. 

“They ignore everything around them. It’s like they’re a robot. I mean, seriously. The other day the kid stayed up for over 36 hours staring into space. Who does that?” Clint glances at you with a look of disgust. You don’t blame him. 

“First of all, the ‘kid’ has a name. On file they are called Eins,” Therapist says. 

She keeps talking. You wish she would shut up. She calls you Eins a second and a third time before you start to flinch. Each time your name is mentioned you feel dread over the next command you receive. 

“Do not call me that.”

Therapist’s attention snaps to you. As does everyone else’s. 

Your voice is hoarse from disuse. 

“Eins is what they call me as an award for survival. For murdering until I was the only child left. Do not call me Eins, as I am not worthy of taking the name of my dead sibling.” 

Therapist seems ecstatic. You haven’t a clue why. 

“What shall we call you then, child?” She asks. 

You feel eyes boring into you. 

“Atlas.” 

The rest of the session, you feel a strange sense of empowerment floating in your veins. 

Briefly, you are high off the feeling of finally making a choice for yourself. Of breaking free from the past that haunts you in your sleep. 

That same night, Zehn hugs you rather than chokes you. You wonder why. 

At the next therapy session, you speak.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey! Thanks for reading. Please leave a comment/kudo if you liked. Thanks so so much for being patient for this chapter. It was hard to write because I don’t want everything to go too fast


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> atlas is taken away. they pass out a lot

Natasha sits on the floor, a gentle smile on her face. You huddle against her, trying to stay warm in the cold spring weather. 

“Now, now, little spy, save enough of the blanket for everyone else.”

You look at her with false sadness before shoving the blanket towards Tony and Steve.

Steve has his sketchbook out, gentle sounds of pencil writing on paper relaxes you. Bucky laughs lightly when he makes Steve mess his drawing up. Clint sets a bag of candy down beside you. You accept it, but quickly set it off to the side. 

(You feel guilty, accepting food from others. You know now after reading through your files that several of your siblings didn’t survive infanthood due to starvation.)

“Ready? It’s about to rise.” Tony says, taking out his tablet to type something.

You and your housemates stare out at the skyline. The city is beautiful, coated in the darkness.

When the sun begins to rise, though, it is more beautiful than you could have ever imagined.The sun lingers over the skyline, as if hesitant. It inches its way into the sky, slowly waking those in the city. 

You watch as the sun does the job of holding up the sky. After months, your therapy has helped you drop the weight you held on your shoulders. It is still there, but it is smaller. You are learning to forgive yourself for things that were not your fault. Learning that you can feel without consequence. That you are your own person, not a slave to HYDRA.

After a particularly grueling night, Bruce suggested that you and the Avengers all watch the sunrise. 

“To prove that you don’t have to hold up the sky. You can let the sun do that for you,” he said with a kind smile. 

You glance over at him. He leans against a counter, asleep.

You try your best not to grin at the sight.

Offhandedly, you tap Nat on her shoulder and point towards Bruce. She laughs lightly. 

Slowly but surely, everyone in the room starts to either leave or fall asleep. Tony falls asleep with his face on his StarkPad, Steve leans against Bucky with heavy eyes. Natasha and Clint leave to their own room after whispering a goodbye. 

You stare at Bucky. Over the past few months you have come to see him as something more than Soldat. Just like you, he has a far way to go. A lifetime of torture by the hands of HYDRA is hard to get over. You would know.

He catches you staring, but instead of looking away in shame, you smile at him.

He smiles back. It is a small smile, hesitant, but you could swear it was there.

Bucky and Steve retire to their room. Again, you are alone. Instead of letting this bother you, you decide to take a walk.

You alert JARVIS that you will be leaving and take to the streets.

The air is cold. It fills your lungs and makes you feel more awake. A cafe at the end of Park Avenue and watch as people go by. Russian tourists drink a cup of coffee behind you. You are acutely aware of them, and keep an ear out in case of suspicious behaviour. 

This bites you in the ass, though. You focus so much on who you assume to be a threat, that when a waiter walks by you and stabs you with a needle, you are caught by surprise.

Blackness envelops your vision before you have time to react. 

_____

The fist connects with your face harder than you thought it would.

“You will die before you join the likes of them again,” a familiar voice says. German. It feels like you should remember them. Recognition crawls under your skin as you search for connections.

“You will die before you serve anyone but Hydra.”

Another fist hits your cheek. You taste blood in your mouth. 

Hydra? 

The rag over your eyes is pulled off, and you see Handler. 

You thought they had died with the Lab Coats.

“All of this time has gone to waste. Too many months. Your abilities are a fraction of what they were before you were taken. We must work hard to bring you back to being the top Soldat. An Eins cannot be seen as weak as you are.”

You are not weak. You try to show Handler this, but before your ability takes hold you feel a needle sliding under your skin. The world goes dark.

You are alone. This bothers you.

Somewhere in the world, you hope Bucky is looking for you.

_____

Dried blood covers every inch of your body. 

“Comply.”

“No.” You say this over and over. The awareness of the consequences means nothing. After spending months working on being able to say what you want, you push back against the tyrant hurting you. 

Another cut, this time to the stomach. You groan. The black spots at the corner of your eyes are growing. 

“Comply!”

You whimper. “N-no.”

Instead of using a knife, this time they electrocute you.

Somewhere in the back of your head, you think you deserve it. It is hard to push that thought out of your head.

The voltage on the chair is too high. Rather than focusing on it, you try to think of anything else. 

Your therapist’s kind smile when you ask her questions. Tony’s look of pride when you finally understood one of his references. Natasha smiling at a joke you made in Russain. Clint burning popcorn for the tenth time.

So many good memories, and yet they all led you to this moment. This moment where pain fills every crevice of your body so completely you cannot tell where it starts or ends. You feel helpless as they inject you with so many chemicals that you can hardly tell if you’re still alive, or just in Hell.

It becomes a script to you. Comply. No. Comply. NO.

You beg for someone to save you. And yet, not a single soul comes. You have to depend on yourself. 

It is hopeless. 

They throw you into a dark concrete room. You get no sustenance. 

“Food,” Handler says, “is for those who comply.”

When you sleep, your siblings crowd around you and keep you warm. You suppose they have forgiven you. If only you could forgive yourself. No matter how long you hurt, you can never forgive yourself. 

Maybe this is penance. Maybe you have died and are suffering for what you have done. The idea that this is a way to be forgiven for what you have done in your past allows you to go on. 

Each day is the same. 

A bag goes over your head. It smells like sweat and blood. 

You are deposited in a room full of torture devices. 

Lab Coat uses them.

“Comply.”

“No.”

You feel a knife peel away the skin on your stomach. Your shouts echo off the walls.

Your brain feels hazy. You can’t interpret what is going on. You feel a warmth pooling around your legs. 

It smells like piss.

Lab Coat gags with disgust and you are sent to get cleaned.

“Let this be the last time. I’ve run out of room down here and I’d hate to touch your perfect face. I worked so hard to make sure you’d turn out attractive.”

You feel their hand grab your crotch. You taste your tears on your tongue. They squeeze parts of you that should not be touched and you feel yourself shake. Puke fills your throat and you swallow it back down. 

A needle slips into your veins. The world muffles with it.

Agony creeps into your heart. You wish, quietly, you had died with your siblings. 

Someone is moaning. The smack of flesh against flesh fills your ears. Something is touching your shoulder. 

Gunshot. 

When you come back to, there is a labcoat covered in blood on the floor. 

Someone in the hall is shouting about preserving the Test Subject.

Test Subject?

Maybe that is your new name. You accept it. It’s easier that way. You should never have thought you mattered.

“I comply.”

What you say echoes in your mind until you pass out.

Guilt gnaws at your heart. In the blackness, you could swear you hear your sister’s blood gurgling in her throat. 

_____

Ceramic breaking on the floor jolts you awake. You have food. It is rotting, but it is food nonetheless. You cannot afford to be picky. Not when your stomach is groaning at the mere scent of the moldy sandwich on the floor. You pick the pieces of the plate out of the food before devouring it. 

In the back of your mind you know it isn’t a good meal. In fact, if you could say so freely you would say it was one of the worst you’ve ever had. But now, in this moment, it is the best damn thing you’ve ever eaten. 

Over the intercom, Handler calls. “You are to finish your meal quickly. Then we shall fix you up before running tests.”

Tests?

If that is the cost of not starving to death, you will undergo these tests. 

Even if the sandwich is kinda gross. 

Your tongue bleeds from bits of ceramic you didn’t pull out. You spit the blood onto the floor. 

Your stomach is heavy from your first meal in over a week. Handler leads you into a shower, and watches you scornfully as you bathe. 

They then drag you into another room. It is filled with boiling chemical compounds and lights so bright it hurts to keep your eyes open.

Handler pushes you into a chair. It has needles on the arms. They push your skin down into the needles.

“Test Subject ready.”

“Which subject is this?” A Lab Coat looks at you with little interest. They have a nametag. Deihl.

“Eins. Pod S.”

Pod S? Did that mean there were others like you? Others suffering the same fate as you? Others who, like your siblings, were killed without reason? 

“Ah. The first success. Delightful. I was wondering if we would get this one back any time soon. Their habit of taking out their siblings was messy, but a treat to watch.”

You held back a snarl. 

“Yes. They are lucky they were the favored outcome, otherwise they would have been terminated long ago.”

They continue speaking so casually about the deaths of children. Like all you and the people you cared for were only Test Subjects. Things to look at and play with and throw away when they stop working. As if your siblings death has not caused you unimaginable pain.

Before you can get up and strangle the life out of Deihl, you feel the needles pump something into you. It burned. 

It feels just like last time. Only this time, you did not sit passively. You feel the fire pump into your veins and you imagine it flowing through you and into your Handler. Into Deihl. You wish they could feel this. The way the chemical feels like gasoline set aflame in your own body. Because then they would know how it feels every second of the day for you. How it feels to know you are the reason those you care for did not survive.

Maybe then they wouldn’t laugh about us. If they had fire filling their body, they would finally understand something you’ve known your whole life. That no matter how much you run, the souls of the dead will haunt you.

You wished you knew what they were thinking. If they truly believed in what they said. 

Wondering if it was possible for them to be redeemed. 

When they laughed over your screams, you decided they could not.

Passively, you hear yourself screaming from the pain. But the idea of breaking apart the pair in front of you made it feel distant. 

When your veins stopped boiling they pulled you off the chair. 

“Put them back in their room. Do not feed or water them for two days. The chemicals must take an effect without any disruptions.”

Dark concrete is familiar at this point. You tense when you are thrown onto it. Surprisingly, the room has been cleaned of your spit and the ceramic. There are thin blankets and a cheap pillow in the corner. 

Shaking as the pain in your system slowly seeps out, you slowly drag yourself to the makeshift sleeping space.

Exhaustion takes over, and you fall into a deep sleep.

Your body feels heavy. Thoughts sluggishly float through your head, but you can’t seem to grab at them long enough to keep them. It feels almost like they aren’t yours. 

That’s okay, though. It’s easier not to think. When you’re forced back onto the mantle of Eins, thinking is a detriment. Especially if your conscience gets in the way.

Over the course of two days, everything feels loud. Your thoughts fill your mind. There are too many at once, and you can't grasp at them just right. It’s frustrating when they fly through your mind and you haven’t a clue what they said. Handler opens the door.

Finally, you can grab onto your thoughts. Only, they aren’t your own. 

_ Stupid kid, depending on us like this. If they tried they could probably take out this whole building. If they had any more sense they’d realize that. Thank God for small miracles. _

“Come, Eins. Quickly.”

Eyebrows furrowing, you follow. As you trail behind Handler, you listen intently to the thoughts. Mostly, they are self concerned. What they will do after work. What they want for lunch. The thoughts are weirdly domestic considering the situation they are in. 

You push away the temptation to tell them watching television does not lead to a productive evening. 

You know better than to speak out of turn. You are Eins. You only speak when spoken to. 

(You push away the memories with the Avengers. That was not you. It was a distraction.)

A man sits before you in the room Handler leads you to. Three others lay still behind him. They are shaking. 

Piss trails down his leg. Pity lightly fills your heart, but you trap it and push it down. Eins does not feel. 

Over the intercom, “Eins, paralyze them. This should be fairly easy.”

It should. You were paralyzing a dozen people at a time before you left. You focus your abilities on them. Despite trying to force your ability onto the victims in front of you, only three have the desired effect. Frustrated, you reach to kill the man who is resisting your ability.

“Stop, Eins. Use your ability only, please.”

The room stinks of ammonia. 

No matter how hard you try, only three paralyze at any given time. A growl crawls up your throat. Too much time passes.

“That is enough.”

Upon the end of testing, your room no longer has the sheets or pillow.

This cycle continues over the course of two weeks. You go in, cannot paralyze all four, and leave. Each time you lose more privileges.

“You are a disgrace,” Handler whispers into your ear before pushing you through the door.

The same four people sit in front of you. The smell of ammonia has only grown stronger.

Over and over in his thoughts, the man in the chair begs for his life. You glance swiftly at him, annoyed. He stares right back. His eyes are sad. You do not pity him.

He tries to speak, but cannot. You listen to his thoughts. All he does is beg and plead. Prays to a God that does not love him. 

“Your constant begging will not bring you help, old man.” You meet his eyes. “Your thoughts are not loud enough to reach for him, nor would he care. I suppose, though, this is the best way to end your suffering.”

Before you can be stopped, you snap his neck. 

Several people fill the room at once, grasping at your arms. They yank you into the hall. Their thoughts fill your mind and there are too many to focus on your own. You shout for them to stop thinking, begging for silence. Your teeth grit violently against each other.

You know you will be punished for this. Know acting like this will bring punishment. You are Eins, afterall. But at the moment, you do not care. It hurts too much. A migraine slots itself into every crevice of your brain. You feel like your head will burst. How many people are around you? How many people’s thoughts are penetrating your skull?

“Cease! Get away from Eins. We must question them before any punishment is allotted,” Diehl says. You squint at him.

His voice makes the headache worse.

As suddenly as they came, the guards pulling at you disperse. Your mind slowly comes back to. Your vision that was once blurred returns, crystal clear. Handler stares at you pensively.

“Eins, we have been under the impression that no new abilities had arisen. That you have only become weaker. Explain your behavior.”

“It was unacceptable, and I will gladly undergo any punishment-”

“No, no punishment is necessary. All you must do is answer this: have you developed a new ability since your testing?”

You nod. 

Diehl and Handler look at each other with excitement in their eyes. Diehl thinks of how relieved he was. Of how if he had made your ability weaker after a second round of testing, he would have been killed. 

“Excellent. What is it?” 

“I often find myself reading the thoughts of those around me.”

Diehl laughs, delighted. 

“Excellent. Your versatility as a spy for HYDRA shall definitely increase.” He claps before looking towards Handler. “If you will, please lead Eins to their room. I shall spread the news of our only ward to survive two tests.”

On the concrete in your cell, there are pillows, a blanket, and sustenance. You resist the urge to run towards it. You must keep control after the way you acted around your superiors. 

After gorging yourself, you pull a blanket to your neck and shut your eyes. Beyond your cell, you can hear celebration.

When you fall into sleep, your siblings are reaching down your throat.

You do not know how to explain why you are doing this. Why you have given into being Eins yet again. They are dead, so how could they understand the desperate need to survive you have. How you do this because maybe if you act as Eins, you won’t get hurt.

In passing, you hope for rescue.

You forget what it is like to not do as you are told.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you liked! Please let me know if you have any corrections or criticism. Anything is accepted. I'm trying my best to become a better writer. Sorry if this chapter is kinda weird and you can't understand! Please leave kudo or comments <3 have a good day/night


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Atlas meets other Pods

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you like it!!

Smiling never came easy to you. Now, though, it seems impossible to do so. You’ve got a knife in your side and three younger kids coming at you. They all couldn’t be more than fourteen, but their eyes are older than they should be. In their eyes, they are centuries old. Each of you are being yelled at. 

There is already a body on the floor. Three others circle you like sharks. You snarl at them.

They think in a language you cannot understand. An advantage, but not much of one. You entertain the thought of sparing them, but they are too vicious. You suppose their training had been harder on them. 

They have abilities, but not the same nature as yours. Theirs are physical. Animalistic. One forms claws at will. Another has a set of gills on their neck. The shortest has teeth that resemble that of a tiger. 

Each of them are terrifying in their own right. But you have been through worse. Seen worse. Killed worse. 

You frown, the taste of blood in your mouth. One takes the first risk and jumps towards you, claws extended. You mute their senses and slash at them with the same knife that was embedded into your side. 

Pity fills your heart, and you embrace it, using it to propel yourself forward and snap the neck of the girl with gills. The boy with the tiger’s teeth slowly backs away, a whine coming out of his throat. 

You off him swiftly. 

Blood pools at your shoes. Your hands are filthy.

You have been at this for weeks. Day in and out murdering. Always coming out on top. Each time, you name the children you kill. It’s not much. Not really anything, actually, but it’s something. It gives them some semblance of humanity in death. 

You study the four children on the floor (because that is what they are, right? Children just as unfortunate as you). Handler had told you they were from Pod C-13. They shall be named with C, then. You study their faces, taking in how disturbingly young they look. You shut their eyes. Caitlyn, Carra, Charles, Camdon. Names were important. You remember that about the Avengers. The wonderful group of people you had lived with what seemed like centuries ago. 

_ “C’mon kid! You finally have a name! That’s at least a little cause for celebration. Want ice cream? A car? An island?” Tony had said, a grin on his lips. _

_Steve snorted. “Don’t spoil them too much, Tony. It might go to their head like Clint.”_

_“Hey! I only asked for the entirety of New Zealand. It’s not like he can't afford it.”_

_“Clint, you took the rancid food in the vents out of them. Me saying that was a cause for celebration did not warrant you asking for the entirety of New Zealand as a reward.” _

_You watched as everything unfolded in front of you. Everyone in the same room, not looking distressed, laughter in the air. You briefly wondered if this was what family was like. If this was how you and your siblings would have been if not pitted against each other. _

Your eyes squeeze shut against the memory. It has been months. Any hope for rescue had died with the first pod you slaughtered. All you can do now is accept it and move on. 

Handler walks into the room. They scrunch their nose up at the smell of blood. “Excellent, Eins. Truly. You have advanced much quicker than previous subjects, and proven yourself capable of terminating enemies considered more advanced than yourself. Dare I say, I believe you will be cleared for missions as soon as I show this data to Doctor Sterns.” 

Handler says this with such excitement. Their thoughts scream of a promotion. You are indifferent. 

You have long since thrown away your humanity. 

There is no place for it here, where everyone’s souls are in the shape of monsters.

___

Your nightmares no longer host your siblings. Instead, it is Caitlyn, Carra, Charles, and Camdon. Their childlike faces coated in blood and wailing to the sky. They beg for mercy in your dreams. All you can do is hold them to your chest until the wails subside and turn into sobs. 

You carry them to the sky and place them in the clouds.

When you return to Earth, you are condemned to holding the sky for eternity. You do it. Caitlyn, Carra, Charles, and Camdon finally rest.

Your arms shake with every second, but you keep the sky up. They deserve rest.

You wake with your own tears pooling on your arm. You dry them quickly, terrified of what would happen if you showed weakness in front of Handler. 

Thankfully they are not here. 

Handler comes into your cell sometimes. They stare at you and write until they get bored and leave. You wonder why they are so unafraid of you. Why they are so sure of their safety around you. 

The room is cold. You can see your breath in the air, the vapor twisting into the empty space in front of you. You feel like a dragon, smoke pouring from your mouth. 

This bores you quickly. You can only spend so long breathing into the darkness before you lose interest. 

You curl up under your thin blanket and wait. The thoughts outside your cell are hard to read. The concrete all around you is too hard to penetrate.   
You wish your own thoughts were hard to reach as well. 

Silence is dangerous. Especially for people like you. 

(A murderer, your brain weakly supplies. You are a murderer. Have always been. Will always be.)

You are a monster with an eighteen year old’s face. 

(You’re a monster, and those children will never come back. That is why you stay here. Why you do not fight back. You know you belong. Everyone here knows it too.)

It’s easier, though, to be a monster. When the torture gets to be too much, when your body and mind fail you and you mold the way the Handler wishes, you let yourself become the monster you hate to be. Becoming a beast is the only way to survive in the world of darkness HYDRA has created.

Lab Coats come in to test your vitals. They prick you with needles and they draw more blood than they need too. They cackle and poke your bruises. 

Pain is a constant when you belong to HYDRA. 

“Lucky you, Eins.” A Lab Coat squeezes your arm tightly. “You’ve got a mission today.”

Mission? 

You perk up at the thought of leaving this place. Even if it is to commit atrocities. Naively, you hope to be assigned to intel. Maybe they only wish to use your mind reading. 

The look on Lab Coat’s face is sinister. 

Your hopes quickly disintegrate. You wonder how many people you must kill.

___

Seven. You kill seven people. Each of them begged for mercy and you did not give it to them. 

The blood stains your hands and you feel tears trailing down your face.

You have an electric shock collar on. It’s humiliating.

You cannot leave the border set by the shock collar, or a painful jolt of electricity sends itself through your body. 

As silently as you can, you walk through the door to the musty motel you have been provided. Handler follows, loudly congratulating you on your first mission of many. 

You’ve had worse days. You’ve massacred much more than seven people at once before. Somehow, though, you are still not immune to the feeling of blood coating your hands. You briefly consider that you have some semblance of humanity left. You crush this thought quickly. Humans do not kill as many people as you have. You are not human. You are no better than the demon who runs this operation.

You tremble, forcing yourself into the shower. Cold water washes over your back and you yank the faucet so the water heats up so much it boils your skin. The water that runs around your feet is pink. You wash yourself with the cheap soap provided by the hotel. You use three bottles of it and two bars of soap on your hands before the pink tinted water is clear. 

You stand under the boiling water until it runs cold, and even after that. 

The world feels heavy when you crawl into the bed. There is too much sound. The honking of cars in the street, people shouting in the room next door, a cricket singing outside your window. The hum of electricity echoes through the room and you stare at the ceiling. You’re convinced you can still smell blood on yourself. 

You close your eyes and the faces of the men you murdered are imprinted on the inside of your eyelids. 

Your stomach clenches at the phantom scent of blood. You think of Lady Macbeth, It seems so long ago that you read that play. So long ago that you realized you are not the only one who suffers with the consequences of their evil actions.

You wonder what they had done to deserve death. Why HYDRA sent you to kill them. The thought is enough to make your throat close up. 

Handler is in the corner of the room, case file in hand. They are marking a paper vigorously. They hardly spare you a glance. 

Your eyes slowly begin to close. They feel like the weight of the world sits on them. A bone deep tired sits in your soul, and the world feels like it shrinks when you finally shut them. 

Sleep comes quickly, and your nightmares are right on their heels. 

Handler’s furious writing falls away, and you fall into the darkness of sleep.

___

You limp when you return to the compound. Handler notices, but does not care. You cannot find it within yourself to ask for medical assistance. 

The limp stays for a few weeks before it stops being painful and becomes more of an annoyance. It doesn’t leave. 

The cuts all over your body heal slowly but surely. Your whole body aches with exhaustion. 

You wonder when your next missions will be. If it is anytime soon, you don’t think you’ll make it back alive. Not in the state you are in. Not with cuts and bruises making it hard to breathe. A rib that you suspect is broken and a limp that makes it difficult to walk. 

Maybe, dying would be a mercy.

You quickly shake this thought out of your head. You cannot consider it. Shouldn’t consider it. If you die, then you insult those who have fallen to your hands. Those who have died so that you may live.

Sometimes, you doubt they care. They are dead, afterall. 

The concept of an afterlife comforts you. Not in the same sense that it comforts those who are religious, nor in the same way it comforts the dying or the weak. It makes you feel less burdened for a small pocket of time. The thought that those who have gone because of you have the opportunity for something better. Something greater than what they had here on this wretched plane. 

You chuckle darkly to yourself. A strange comfort. 

You are entirely aware that if an afterlife does exist, whether it be the one of Biblical terms or of the Greek gods, you will be punished endlessly. You find yourself numb at the thought. Eternal punishment seems redundant when every waking moment you feel as if the world is crashing onto your shoulders. Your arms tire from holding the weight of your wrongdoings.

Maybe an afterlife would be a bad thing, afterall. 

___

Pod F-19 sits in front of you. There are four of them. 

Handler says you must choose who lives and who dies. 

“It is a rite of passage,” they say. “They must fight each other for the right to remain in the compound. As you and your pod once did. You must be so honored to choose the pairings.”

The worst part is, Handler truly believes it is an honor. You fight a gag, bile travelling in your throat at an alarming speed. 

You look at the One of this pod. He looks vicious. Not unlike the others, 

None of them have abilities yet. 

You wonder, briefly, how many had this pod started with. How many had they lost? You are afraid to ask. The answer lies in the folder you are holding in your hands.

They are all afraid. They know what this is, then. Know what will happen. The four of them are aware that only two will make it out alive. Or maybe none of them survive if it is a truly brutal fight. Some of them seem to have given up already. Those are the ones you are most worried for.

“What are your names?”

They whisper their respective numbers but you shake your head. “No your names. Who are you?”

You will give them that much dignity. They deserve it. They deserve to die with names chosen by themselves. With some semblance of an identity. 

The pod whispers amongst themselves. The first to reply is a little girl with the number seven pinned to her chest. “Caretaker read us a story of a girl named Malia once. I would like to be called Malia.”

Malia is tiny. Smaller than her siblings in both height and size. She does not look like the others. 

After she picked her name, the others quickly followed. 

One picked Ethan, Three picked Harry, and Twelve chose Lydia.

You gave each of them a grim smile once they had chosen.

At least now you wouldn’t have to choose their names yourself.

Malia watches you with a curious eye. Despite there being an Eins of the group, she is definitely the leader. The others seem to wait for her decisions before proceeding with everything. 

You grab their files and read them quickly. Their pod had started similarly to yours. In a lab. Seventeen children. Several died during infanthood, then another group during training. 

The four in front of you are the only surviving members of the pod. Soon, there could be only two.

You glance back up and into Lydia’s eyes. They look so much like your sister’s eyes that it hurts you to your very core. They all look like they could be your younger siblings, in fact. The same hair and skin. The other pods never looked terribly similar to what features you remembered your own to have. This pod, though, seems to be different. 

You frantically flip through the folder, searching for something you hope will not be there. 

Hope is a horrible thing, sometimes. 

On the last page, you freeze. A picture of Soldat- of Bucky, your father- is on the file. 

He is their father as well.

Did he know? Was he aware he had more children than what he thought? That there could be another dozen, maybe more, carrying his bloodline, being turned into murderers for survival? That HYDRA had turned him into a father of the damned?

Something sick and twisted inside you prays that he knows nothing about this. You are horrified about what it would do to him if he knew.

You find it tragically funny that even now you worry for him. 

Hands shaking, you shut the folder. The children look at you.

You stare back.

Screams echo in your head, and the stench of blood fills your nostrils.

Will you be able to do this? To lose more siblings?

The ones who have already died, those who haunt you, tell you not to let it happen. They beg and plead at you, asking for their safety. Telling you that although they may not live, these children could. 

You listen.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you enjoyed! Pls leave a comment or a kudos if you did. Have a great day <3

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you liked! Please leave a Kudo/Comment. Comments keep me going. Even if it’s just a :), it will help me continue. See y’all later!


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